Memoirs and Occasional Papers – An ADST Series – Page 3 – Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training

ADST created the Memoirs and Occasional Papers Series to preserve firsthand accounts, histories, and other informed observations on foreign affairs for scholars, journalists, and the general public.

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A Professional Foreigner

Marks, Edward Diplomats and Diplomacy, Memoirs and Occasional Papers

In A Professional Foreigner (Potomac Books/U of Nebraska Press), volume #74 in the Diplomats and Diplomacy Series, Ambassador Edward Marks describes his life as a workaday American professional diplomat, including several close encounters with the U.S. military. Serving primarily in Africa and Asia, Marks was present during the era of...

Queer Diplomacy: A Transgender Journey in the Foreign Service

McCutcheon, Robyn Memoirs and Occasional Papers

Join Robyn McCutcheon, an out and proud transgender woman, on her journey as a diplomat with the U.S. Department of State. Follow her on travels that took her through the Soviet Union as a historian, to the stars as an engineer in the Hubble Space Telescope project, and onward to...

Quiet Diplomacy

Meyer, Armin Memoirs and Occasional Papers

In Quiet Diplomacy, Armin Meyer recounts and analyzes the wide-ranging experiences and lessons learned in his remarkable life and extraordinary diplomatic career. He also offers valuable guidance for today’s diplomacy.

Ambassador Meyer’s distinguished public career spanned more than thirty tumultuous years of hot and cold war, beginning in World War...

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Diplomats provide the first line of America’s defense as they formulate and implement our country’s foreign policy. Too often, the stories of their experiences and insights remain untold. In 2003 the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) created the Memoirs and Occasional Papers Series to preserve such firsthand accounts and other informed observations on foreign affairs. In American Diplomats, retired diplomats William D. Morgan and Charles Stuart Kennedy have selected from ADST’s Foreign Affairs Oral History archives forty accounts of diplomats’ experiences in the years from 1920 to1997. Insiders recount, for example, what happens when a consul spies on Nazi Germany, Mao-Tse-Tung drops by for a chat, the Cold War begins with the Berlin blockade, the Marshall Plan rescues Europe, Sukarno moves Indonesia into the communist camp, Khrushchev calls Kennedy an SOB, and our ambassador is murdered in Kabul. The editors have set each episode in its historical context. “You are there” accounts deepen readers’ understanding, as diplomatic and consular officers talk about predicting a coup in Ecuador, the beginnings of Kremlinology, the first woman US commercial officer in Latin America, Hemingway and the embassy in Havana, the secret formulation of the NATO treaty, Jerusalem after British and U.S. recognition of Israel, a house arrest in Mukden, China, fighting in the Congo over Katangan secession, dealing with an alcoholic foreign president, human rights work in Paraguay, the U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran, Greece and Turkey at odds over an island, the U.S. Embassy bombing in Beirut, the breakup of Yugoslavia, embassy roles in Riyadh and Tel Aviv during Desert Storm, and much more. Those whose oral histories are excerpted in the book are: Theodore C. Achilles, Aldene Alice Barrington, Maurice Bernbaum, William A. Brown, John H. Burns, Richard Butrick, Frank C. Carlucci III, Elinor Constable, William R. Crawford, Robert S. Dillon, Thomas J. Dunnigan, Eldon E. B. Erickson, Charles W. Freeman Jr., Charles Anthony Gillespie Jr., Marshall Green, Parker T. Hart, Constance R. Harvey, Edward Hurwitz, Kempton B. Jenkins, C. William Kontos, George W. Landau, L. Bruce Laingen, LaRue R. Lutkins, Douglas MacArthur II, Michael M. Mahoney, Robert J. Martens, James McCargar, Francis Terry McNamara, John Melby, Thomas N. T. Niles, Claiborne Pell, Robert Rackmales, John Stewart Service, Wells Stabler, Richard S. Thompson, Nicholas L. Veliotes, William Watts, E. Allan Wendt.

American Diplomats

Morgan, William D. , Kennedy, Charles Stuart Memoirs and Occasional Papers, United States. -- Foreign Service -- History.

Diplomats provide the first line of America’s defense as they formulate and implement our country’s foreign policy. Too often, the stories of their experiences and insights remain untold. In 2003 the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) created the Memoirs and Occasional Papers Series to preserve such firsthand accounts...

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Curious about a senior American diplomat’s perspective on working for a U.S. Secretary of State and the inner workings of foreign policy? Are you interested in what a diplomatic career and family life can look like? Or insights into the Vietnam war and lessons learned and not learned? Or insights into China’s “reform and opening up” and challenges in U.S.-China relations? Or Hong Kong’s historic return to China in 1997 and its future? Or insights into a second career in education leading three international schools and education in the twenty-first century? This memoir, written by a former senior U.S. Foreign Service Officer, provides readers with an introduction to how the Department of State serves the American people, advances national security interests, and builds bridges to international understanding through its global network of embassies and other diplomatic missions. Mueller served in numerous overseas assignments, including two postings at the American Embassy in Saigon during the Vietnam War, at the United States Liaison Office in Beijing in the 1970s before the establishment of a formal embassy, and as the highest-ranking American diplomat in Hong Kong leading up to its reversion to China. Those postings gave him numerous opportunities to help build global bridges to understanding among diverse countries and peoples. With firsthand insights, the author shares experiences working for Secretaries Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, and James Baker—offering a unique perspective on U.S. global foreign policies of the last fifty years. After his career in the Foreign Service, serendipity led Mueller to become the Head of School for three independent institutions: Northfield Mount Hermon School (NMH) in Massachusetts, Hong Kong International School, and Shanghai American School. The NMH board of trustees had assured him that "diplomacy would be highly valued in the realm of education," aligning with the school's longstanding dedication to international education. Mueller explores his vision of a quality education centered on students and reflects on the rewarding experience of interacting with students and school communities for fifteen years, while collectively deepening their understanding of our interconnected world. Mueller and his wife, Claire (also Foreign Service), and their family including seven grandchildren have fully embraced the international life of service and building bridges to understanding. They reside in Golden, Colorado.

From American Diplomat to Diplomatic Educator: Building Global Bridges to Understanding

Mueller, Richard Memoirs and Occasional Papers

Curious about a senior American diplomat’s perspective on working for a U.S. Secretary of State and the inner workings of foreign policy?

Are you interested in what a diplomatic career and family life can look like? Or insights into the Vietnam war and lessons learned and not learned? Or insights...

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Nicole Prévost Logan’s overview of the life and work of an American diplomatic family over thirty years in ten countries on three continents reveals her hands-on approach and her pride at a career spent mostly in the field. The couple’s cosmopolitan upbringing enriched the empathy they felt toward the different cultures they encountered. Logan approaches each country with a voracious curiosity, learning about its history, political system, and culture. She seems to enjoy the constant discoveries, thrives on difficulties, and spices up her story with personal, often humorous commentaries, especially about her husband Alan. In portraying him, she reveals much about the role of a Foreign Service officer and their postings in Taiwan, Turkey, Lebanon, the Soviet Union, Guinea, Nigeria, Tunisia, Belgium, South Africa, and the Gambia. Against an exciting backdrop of civil war, political coups, and turmoil, the story reads like an adventure. It touches on U.S. foreign policy in the Far East, turmoil in the Middle East, “thaw” in the Soviet Union, U.S. economic assistance and the future of Africa, the coming together of Europe, and the end of apartheid. Although the author does not consider the book to be academic, she conducted thorough research in writing it and hopes it will interest a wide readership, including diplomats, academics, and art lovers. NICOLE PRÉVOST LOGAN grew up in Paris, where she graduated from “Sciences Po” and earned a law degree from the Sorbonne. She has master’s degrees in political science from Stanford University and in Russian studies from American University. After thirty years of diplomatic life, she concentrated on archaeological expeditions and published several articles on digs in Tunisia, Israel, and Russia. She sailed with her husband on the Black Sea, the Baltic, the Adriatic, the Aegean, and the Mediterranean and later traveled down the Volga by sailboat. She has four grown children and divides her time between Connecticut and Paris.

Forever on the Road

Nicole Prevost Logan Memoirs and Occasional Papers, Political science

Nicole Prévost Logan’s overview of the life and work of an American diplomatic family over thirty years in ten countries on three continents reveals her hands-on approach and her pride at a career spent mostly in the field. The couple’s cosmopolitan upbringing enriched the empathy they felt toward the different...

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Peck’s Postulates

Peck, Edward L. Memoirs and Occasional Papers, Political science

Ambassador (ret.) Edward L. Peck presents a concise, organized framework for navigating international relations in Peck’s Postulates, a new volume in the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training Memoirs and Occasional Papers Series. With touches of gentle humor, the author offers four concepts, each explicated with supporting statements and examples....

U.S. intelligence specialist James Potts tells the story of how covert French military aid changed the course of history by enabling the rebellious Americans to hold off the forces of Britain’s King George III, most notably in the pivotal battle of Saratoga in October 1777. Potts probes the actions of France’s King Louis XVI’s government in secretly providing vital arms and ammunition to George Washington’s forces––and much-needed subsidies to the Continental Congress––in the critical early years of the American Revolution, beginning in 1775. Drawing heavily on contemporaneous French government archives and other historical sources, Potts brings to life the colorful leading characters in the drama: France’s Foreign Minister (and secret spymaster) le Comte de Vergennes; Vergennes’s principal agent, the playwright Beaumarchais; Lord Stormont, King George’s ambassador in Paris; Benjamin Franklin, the wily American Commissioner in Paris; and numerous perpetrators of high intrigue on land and sea. The author also shows the highly-effective British counterespionage operations, whose American agents had penetrated Franklin’s mission in Paris, even intercepting his letters to the Continental Congress. In 1778 France joined the Americans openly in their war against the British and, at great cost to French fiscal well-being, further helped them win their independence.

French Covert Action in the American Revolution

Potts, James M. Memoirs and Occasional Papers

U.S. intelligence specialist James Potts tells the story of how covert French military aid changed the course of history by enabling the rebellious Americans to hold off the forces of Britain’s King George III, most notably in the pivotal battle of Saratoga in October 1777. Potts probes the actions of...

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Lu Rudel describes his unique experiences with U.S. economic aid programs during some of the most dramatic international events since World War II. These include Iran after the fall of Mosaddegh (1956–1960); Turkey after the military coup of 1960 and continuing to the start of the Cuban Missile crisis; India after the death of Nehru (1965–1970); and Pakistan following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988. Rudel’s firsthand observations on Iran differ markedly from the description of events commonly espoused by some historians and journalists. His memoir also provides a firsthand account of the political metamorphosis over the past half-century of the “Group of 77” nations, as they attempted to employ the UN’s economic development agencies to press for a “New International Economic Order.” These experiences lead him to draw important lessons about the conduct and effectiveness of foreign aid. After retirement in 1980 Rudel launched a second career, applying lessons learned from his work in international development to creating and running a thousand-acre land development and resort in rural Appalachia. His experiences over the ensuing thirty years as an entrepreneur track the relentless growth of government regulations and the disappearance of community support institutions such as local banks, now being replaced by megabanks. A final chapter examines global trends of the past eighty years in four critical areas of change affecting our lives––population growth, science and technology, economic systems, and political structures––to draw some surprising conclusions and projections. LUDWIG “LU” RUDEL, a Holocaust survivor from Vienna, came to the United States in 1938. A 1952 graduate of City College of New York, his graduate studies at NYU were interrupted by two years of service in the U.S. Army. In 1956 he joined the International Cooperation Administration and served succeeding U.S. foreign aid programs in various roles until 1980. He also developed and ran the Glendale Yearound community in Appalachian Pennsylvania until 2002.

Memoirs of an Agent for Change in International Development

Rudel, Ludwig Biography, Memoirs and Occasional Papers

Lu Rudel describes his unique experiences with U.S. economic aid programs during some of the most dramatic international events since World War II. These include Iran after the fall of Mosaddegh (1956–1960); Turkey after the military coup of 1960 and continuing to the start of the Cuban Missile crisis; India...

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Bushels and Bales

Steele, Howard Agricultural economists, Memoirs and Occasional Papers

Bushels and Bales: A Food Soldier in the Cold War covers Howard Steele’s encounters with the people, problems, and opportunities in forty-three countries and a variety of U.S. government programs. Along the way, he survived gun-toting Bolivian revolutionaries, Viet Cong artillery fire, deadly anarchy in Sri Lanka, a shakedown by...

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